Tutankhamun's stool

When Howard Carter discovered the tomb of Tutankhamun at Thebes in November, 1922, the world was mesmerized as gold burial equipment, lavishly embellished furniture, and other items emerged from a royal resting place that had miraculously survived almost intact since antiquity. During the ensuing phase of Tut fever, Joseph Skinner visited Egypt and purchased what was touted as an exact copy of a stool belonging to the young king. Tut’s original, now in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, is itself an elegant reinterpretation, imitating a folding seat draped with a leopard skin, but made—for eternity—in more durable ebony and ivory.